Much Abrew: Broodmoth Combo (Modern)
Hello, everyone! Welcome to another episode of Much Abrew About Nothing. This week, we're heading to the post-companion Modern format to do something I've been wanting to do since Ikoria spoiler season: combo Luminous Broodmoth with Solemnity and use Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath to draw our entire deck (and gain a bunch of life and put all of the lands we draw onto the battlefield) for just three mana! Since we're playing Solemnity to support our combo, we also get the backup plan of locking our opponent out of the game with Phyrexian Unlife, which, with Solemnity, makes it so we can't die to damage for as long as our enchantments stay on the battlefield. Does the combo actually work? What does Modern look like now that companions have been nerfed? Let's get to the video and find out; then, we'll talk more about the deck!
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Much Abrew: Broodmoth Combo
Discussion
- Record-wise, we killed it, going a perfect 5-0!
- Just to walk through the steps of the combo, the plan is this:
- Play Luminous Broodmoth and Solemnity. Luminous Broodmoth makes it so that when a creature without flying dies, it comes back into play with a flying counter. Solemnity prevents the flying counter. This makes it so when our non-flying creatures die, they will keep returning to play.
- Play Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath. This will draw us a card, gain us three life, and let us put a land into play; then, since it wasn't escaped, it will die and return to the battlefield (giving us another card, three more life, and potentially another land). This will keep happening until we draw our entire deck, put all of our lands into play, and gain somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 life.
- The problem with the above combo is that it will mill us out if we don't stop it. Thankfully, we have four copies of Path to Exile in our deck so that as we draw our entire deck, we should end up with at least one (and often several) in hand. Using one of the lands we put into play with Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath, we simply Path to Exile Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath to stop the loop before we mill out.
- Finally, as we draw our deck, we'll find our one copy of Thassa's Oracle and our one Fae of Wishes. Using our Uro lands, we can either just cast Thassa's Oracle (if our opponent is tapped out) once we draw our deck to win the game, or if we are worried about interaction (like a counterspell), we can first use Fae of Wishes to tutor up Veil of Summer or Dovin's Veto to protect the combo and then use Thassa's Oracle to win the game. Just be warned: Veil of Summer might make us draw a card, so if we are planning on using it, we need to Path to Exile Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath with one card left in our deck.
- One thing we learned about our combo is that it doesn't happen all that consistently. Two of our five matches ended with the combo. The other thing we learned is a lot of decks in Modern can't beat the Solemnity / Phyrexian Unlife combo. We picked up several wins just by locking damage out of the game and having our opponent scoop because they had no ways to kill us. In theory, those games eventually would have ended with the Luminous Broodmoth combo, but the lock is so good in some matches that our opponent didn't even bother to make us play it out.
- Holding together the deck are Commune with the Gods and Benefaction of Rhonas, both of which can grab creatures and / or enchantments from our top five cards, which means they dig for both our Luminous Broodmoth combo pieces and our backup Solemnity / Phyrexian Unlife lock. They also dump cards into the graveyard, which gives us a Plan C of just escaping Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath and winning with the 6/6 beater.
- If there's one thing I'd change about the deck, it's the mana base. We want as many "real" (i.e., mana-producing) lands that come into play untapped as possible to support the Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath loop and give us enough mana to Fae of Wishes, Dovin's Veto, and Thassa's Oracle in the same turn to finish the combo. While we do need some fetch lands to make the mana work (we really need untapped green mana on Turn 1 for Noble Hierarch and Birds of Paradise), trimming a few for more shock lands is probably ideal.
- So, should you play Broodmoth Combo in Modern? I think the answer is yes. It felt competitive, the Solemnity / Phyrexian Unlife lock is great, and the combo is super-sweet when it goes off! Plus, you can't do much better than going five for five, as far as winning matches!
Conclusion
Anyway, that's all for today. As always, leave your thoughts, ideas, opinions, and suggestions in the comments, and you can reach me on Twitter @SaffronOlive or at SaffronOlive@MTGGoldfish.com.
